The door closed. Mara looked at the pocket where she'd put the letter. Then at the table where the oil cloth packet used to sit. Then at Gideon. I've been thinking about what you said.
She said about the east parcel. I know you have. I want to be careful about how I do it. Legally careful. I don't want to build something that can be taken the way things were taken before.
Ferris can help you structure it. Whitlock probably has a recommendation for a territorial property attorney. I was thinking I'd ask Whitlock directly when I give testimony. She paused. But the other thing I've been thinking about the east parcel being visible from the road.
If I build there, it means, she stopped. Started differently. It means I'd be building something on land that's near yours. Adjacent to mine, he said. Adjacent, she agreed.
Which is different from separate. He looked at her steadily. Yes, he said it is. She had been careful over the past 11 days not to confuse what she felt for this man with what she needed from him. They were not the same thing, and she had been through enough to know the difference.
She had needed shelter, and he had provided it. She had needed practical help, and he had provided that, too. Neither of those things obligated her feelings, and neither of them obligated his. She had watched herself carefully for the particular vulnerability of a woman who has been afraid for a long time and who might mistake safety for something more durable. She did not think she was making that mistake.
What she felt for Gideon Mercer was not the feeling of someone who had mistaken shelter for home. It was the feeling of someone who had watched a man operate at his actual level, unperformed, unguarded in the ways that mattered, completely clear about what he was and what he wasn't, and had found that his actual level was something she trusted. That was different. She knew the difference. When this is done, she said,"when the testimony is given and the legal proceedings are in Whitlock's hands and I have my property back properly.
I want to talk about what comes next. So do I."He said,"."She picked up her coffee cup. He picked up his. They drank. Outside she heard Toby's voice carrying from the barn.